Falconry Displays

In the section on lost birds and telemetry in my book ‘Falconry – aspects of care of the trained falcon and hawk’ I included a few notes on encounters with wild raptors and other birds.

These days with the buzzards almost everywhere and kites not far behind the meeting of trained and wild raptors is inevitable.

At one time the only buzzard that could be seen around here was mine! Wild buzzards were very rarely if ever seen. Now they are very much ‘common buzzards’ again. Which is great to see. They keep the rat population under control, we have at least 4 pairs of buzzards nesting locally. Trained birds now grow up with these wild birds around and generally get used to them.

Although understandably if a trained falcon is sitting on the ground on the lure, it is a little unsettling having a buzzard or kite flying or circling overhead. The falcons tend to make a ‘hecking’ noise of alarm.  The falconer should ‘make in’ as quickly as possible and pick the bird up or at least with the falconers company to make it feel less exposed. There is the fear that the bird may just panic and bolt leaving the lure on the ground. We had this happen with a female lugger falcon many years ago. I got her back a week later! Through her ID tag – which underlines their value – she was picked up and taken to an animal rescue centre and I got the call.

Last week I was flying ‘Sprite’ our peregrine and I noticed that he went very quiet and crouched down while sitting on the lure.  He was looking upwards. I followed his line of sight and noticed there was a wild falcon circling just above us. It looked like a young female peregrine – still in juvenile plumage – from last year. She would be too young to breed this year. It can be quite difficult to sex a single peregrine in flight but when both sexes are seen together the female is visibly bigger and bulkier. Our peregrine I am pretty sure was a female.

She was a lovely looking falcon with quite a long tail and showing all the curiosity and bemusement of a wild falcon stumbling upon a trained counterpart. She circled for some time and dropped quite low to have a good look. We, Sprite and I were just awe struck. The wild falcon then deciding she had seen everything she wanted to see – gained height – and drifted away and snapped back into hunting mode.

It was a benign encounter. This is typical. Falcons can be drawn in to investigate a trained falcon stooping to the lure. Hunters are very curious.

As I say in my book be prepared to call your bird down if a wild falcon shows up. Just in case. Sometimes it is the other way around and a trained bird can be drawn away by a wild falcon or kestrel as happened most famously at Blenheim Palace when ‘Slick’ another peregrine – see an earlier blog –  joined a kestrel on a thermal and drifted away.

It shows just how much you can see and learn about the natural world while out with a falcon or hawk.

I will sign off with a picture of ‘Peggy’ a lanner-lugger falcon waiting on. She was not only an incredibly beautiful falcon but an amazingly versatile and brilliant flier. She was the first hybrid of her type. Her mother was a lugger falcon from Pakistan and her father a lanneret from the middle east. She lived for 25 years. Anyway, here she is.

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